


On the Run

by Toastybluetwo



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-05
Updated: 2011-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-24 07:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toastybluetwo/pseuds/Toastybluetwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no ‘happily ever after’ for Anders and Hawke. Anders/f!Hawke. Written for the BSN Manifestos Welcome group prompt: ‘leave’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Run

“I can still taste what we ate for dinner.”

Anders and I are both in a cave. No, let’s not call it a cave. It’s more of an abandoned burrow than a cave, made by some animal whose fur still clings to the dark walls. The ceiling hangs so low that I can’t stand upright, and Anders definitely can’t do more than crouch on the ground.

“Mm.” Anders’ voice sounds uncharacteristically cheerful in the semi-darkness. “I haven’t had roasted pork like that in years.” He smacks his lips.

We’re dressed quite inappropriately for our surroundings. I’m wearing the first dress I’ve owned in years – mint-green silk, with matching slippers, now all undoubtedly covered in mud, sand, and leaves, ruined beyond washing or repair. Anders, under extreme duress and a bit of bullying on my part, wore something other than black – a dark green tunic and matching trousers. Our clothes were embroidered richly and set with beads made by the hands of local craftsmen.

“Where do you suppose that Varric found that wine?” I squint, trying my best to see Anders, even though I can feel him easily. After all, we’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, our backs against one of the moist walls of the burrow. However, I catch nothing more than a shadow, a sliver of moonlight finding his silver-streaked hair.

“A better question is this: how in the Void did they find us in Rivain?” Anders lets out an exasperated groan as he bangs his head against the burrow wall. Once. Twice. Three times.

“It had to have been that shaman,” I say as I place a hand on his shoulder. It wouldn’t do to have him bash his brains out. Then, blood and bits of brain would be all over my dress and all over me, and I thought I had left behind the worst of my washer woman’s bills back in Kirkwall. “He turned us in.”

“No, he was a shaman. He’d have been taken in by the Templars as quickly as we would if he went within five feet of them.” Anders allows himself another long groan of frustration. “The local religion is seen as heresy by the Chantry.”

“We became too complacent, then.” My mind turns to our home in Dairsmuid. Our adorable home, where we held almost daily meetings of revolutionaries looking to contribute to the war, and occasionally harbored a mage on the run from the Chantry.

And then, there was the issue of our cat.

“Ser Gobbles!” Anders’ voice sounds panicked. “We have to go back for him!”

“Are you mad?” I hiss back. “You don’t think that the Templars are sitting at our kitchen table right now, confiscating your books and eating chocolate biscuits out of the breadbox?”

“Maybe…” Relaxing somewhat, his voice sounds positively miserable. “Maybe Aveline will go back for him. Maybe Varric will bribe one of the Templars.”

Suddenly, there’s the sound that I dreaded – voices echoing in the forest. Voices tumbling across one another, winding through the young forest all around us as heavy boots crunch through leaves and fallen twigs.

I find myself clutching Anders’ arm, my fingers digging into his bicep out of pure, sheer fear. I can hear the creaking of their armor, the soft rubbing of leather upon iron and iron upon iron. Feet travel over our heads. Two men discuss what they will have for their late dinner, how they will stop by the pie shop that’s open well into the twenty-second bell – and who keeps a shop open that late? Bunch of savages, these Rivani, with their heretical religion and their shamans and their shops open way too late.

I recognize the accent. The men are Fereldans, but that doesn’t mean that they came recently from there.

“Quiet,” one hisses.

They stop. My heart stops.

Next to me, I can feel Anders trembling. He’s terrified. I’m terrified. The Templars are above us, standing above us, their feet trodding on our heads. One good rainstorm and they would be standing in mud seconds before it turned into a sinkhole, and they would be on our laps instead.

I wonder if they would be able to find the burrow. The hillside was full of them, homes clearly meant for bears and large dogs. We were fortunate to find one that appeared unoccupied. Then again, who was to say that the Templars would leave, only to have a bear return to his home and find it full of tasty, tender meat? I hadn’t awoken this morning expecting to be captured by Templars, nor to end up as a meal of the local wildlife.

“Must have been the wind,” one surmises, and their heavy footsteps lead them away from our burrow.

We stay still until we can’t hear them anymore. Then, I slide down the wall and allow my head to fall heavily on the ground. I wrap my arms around the voluminous yards of silk laced tightly to my body. It forms a luxurious blanket of relief and stiff, crumbling mud.

Anders lies down next to me, like two spoons together, his chest against my back, his arms around me, holding me tightly to him. He is still shaking, but I can hear his conscious effort to still his own breathing. We have both been running from Templars for most of our lives, but Anders knows close calls such as this as well as he knows his own name.

A name that I’m turning over in my head now, a name that I just learned that afternoon. This was a day that should have been tinted with the rosy sunset that passed a few hours before, and floating on a gentle breeze of music, a good meal, and a great deal of wine. We should have been able to conclude it in our home, with our cat purring at the hearth, with time alone in our bedchamber, and time to contemplate the events of the day.

Instead, Anders is reaching for my hands, cupping them in his large ones, the capable fingers closing around the new piece of jewelry that graces my ring finger – a simple wedding band. He spins it around my finger with the gentle pressure of his own.

“Do you regret marrying me?” He murmurs in my ear.

I respond without thinking, my fingers dancing over his wedding band, tapping against the wider, less ornate, ring. “I haven’t left you yet, and I won’t.” I whisper. “Today only sealed the deal, legally and completely.”


End file.
